Korriban
by L.Long
Summary: The adventures that the team has on Korriban. First story. T for safty. Honest reviews welcomed. If I handle something wrong as a user tell me.


The two meet in battle striving to kill the other. She is the Angle of Peace and he is the Night of Sacrifice. They are natural enemies. There was betrayal and death. The Angle had lost, the Night had lost. The Night's student had won for he was the Demon. The Night lay dieing and the Angle came beside him. There, her compassion was realized and she cast a spell of forgottenment. She made the Night her shadow and herself his. Where the Angle tread the Shadow followed. Where the Angle had ended her reflection began. She learned Sacrifice and he learned Peace. They were a pair and they were one. They survived the teaching of the student.

The Demon knew this and came back, cleaving the Angle and the Shadow apart and taking her away. The Angle's spell was broken. Only the Shadow remained. He remembered the battle and the betrayal. He also remembered the Angle. He finally recalled the Demon. The Demon had taken his Peace. He called out her name. He looked to find his other half for he was hers and she was his. The Shadow crawled through Heaven and he raided Hell.

There is a tale told of two beings; one is light, the other dark. One is woman, the other man. One is whole, the other broken. One is life while the other is death. Both are opposites, both die destroying the other. In time they bring each other alive.

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The Leviathan hurled through the tunnel of hyperspace. From the bridge view port the deep blue of the molten fifth dimension screamed by as the dark Jedi navigator guided the Sith interdictor class warship. The navigator's placid face was the color of the driven snow cracked with the lines of age. The woman's brow was furled in consideration and sweat was seeping into her cowl as she buried herself into the Force, using it to guide the ship to its destination. The Sith warships lack the navigation computer that all modern class ships sported and relied on the skills of one who could perceive the planets, stars, asteroids, nebulas, and black holes that defined interstellar space by the thread of the universe.

The Dark Lord of the Sith glanced at the new navigator and the rest of the replacement crew with his sunken, sickly yellow eyes. He would have preferred to trust his life to a more experienced navigator; however the pervious one had had his heart turned into carbon. The strong stench of the burned flesh still clung to the air for the old navigator was not the only one to perish by burns and the ventilation system had just finally been brought fully on line. Or maybe it was the still fresh saber wound to his shoulder that had barely cut through his armor that he had received from his formal master that fermented the bridge.

A twitch ran down his spine, the first kernel of fear that he had experience in the past months. Damn him! More of his old master still lived than he had thought. Revan still held his fear and like a parasite's bite it grew over time. He knew the old nightmares would return. He should have killed Revan while he held his throat in his grip; drinking deep of the resentment and fear for his companions in his old master's eyes. The eyes that had been the soft blue of a planet's sky. Had he changed? He needed to gain control again, but after the report.

In fact, as the double hilt lightsaber turned in hands, he captured an idea. The bridge blast door opened and a lieutenant came forward and knelt. Malak's electronic rasp flowed, "Yes?"

"The final numbers are in, Lord. Fifty-six deaths and nine wounded. The damaged hardware can be repaired in a matter of days."

"Thank you. Have the wounded and the personal that had direct contact with the prisoners report to the infirmary. And give the woman a stimulant. I want her to be conscious." The Sith lord's eyes narrowed and continued, best to bury everything at once, "Erase the security footage as well."

"It will be done," and the lieutenant hurried off. Malak stayed on the bridge a while longer then headed to see his prize. It would not be his old master at his hands but it was all he had. She would be enough.

As he entered the infirmary the Dark Lord saw all the personal had been assembled. Bastila, Malak saw, was alert and sitting on a bed chained with a neural restrainer that inhibited the mind from focusing onto the Force. The restrainer induced a drugged like haze that hung at the edge of perception. When the restrained tried to concentrate, their thoughts became slippery and as the mind tried to tighten its gripe the neural restrainer pushed a deep migraine into the wearer's brain.

Bastila was hugging her knees to her chest and staring off while. She rocked ever so slightly from side to side. She was dirty and stank of sweat. Malak dipped himself into the Force to get a read on the young woman. The swirl of Force weaved around her penetrating her abdomen, and like a sewer's needle and thread, stitched along the rest of her body. The feeling of regret, fear, and resentment was potent.

Bastila finally noticed the tall Lord in the maroon body suit with the flat-blue cape. "He'll come for me, you know." The Forced spiked with excitement and longing, the Jedi's ability to hide her emotions was compromised. It took a moment for Malak to recognize this new emotion. The feeling she harbored was more than respect it was . . . ah, this would hurt his old master more than anything.

"Of course he will, child. But by that time will he still want you? A Twi'lek whore will have more innocence than you." Malak reached for his belt and pulled out her lightsaber. Bastila's eyes glinted and then turned away, good she wanted this. "A Jedi's tool made in the image of the wielder. An extension of the self and a vassal to hold the beliefs and the convictions of a knight. This saber is a lot like mine. Lieutenant, leave and secure the door."

Malak then powered one of the yellow blades, took a step back and sent it into one of a wounded soldier's chest; he was dead before he knew what hit him. The others however knew. Some ran to the already locked door, but escape was hopeless. Some pleaded. Some begged. A few fought. All died.

Bastila sat, vacant eyed taking in every detail. Her lightsaber did this. She had spent days working on that instrument when the Masters decided that she would become a padawan. With reverence and respect she had slowly, methodically made sure the crystals were perfectly aligned, unto the point her hands had began to shake and it had hurt to close them into fists.

That had been her balance point. It had been her achievement of skill, a sign that nearly every being in the galaxy could recognize. She had given and given and given of herself for the Republic, for the Jedi. Bastila had nothing left to give. All that she had had Malak washed away. A hot hate settled over her and her bloodshot eyes burned.

A cold hand cupped her chin and wrenched her head up and her gaze locked with the Sith Lord's, "This was your first lesson. You receive a passing grade." He then left. Bastila buried her head in her knees and let the tears flow with only the dead for comfort as Malak's foot steps faded away.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

He held Bastila's hands in his own in the Ebon Hawk's port dormitory. They were warm. Time was short; soon he knew she would be taken from him. Everything had to be said but nothing seemed important. She knew what he felt and felt what he knew. Tears flowed from her eyes. Eyes that should have never had to realize pain. She had sacrificed so much. Bastila had given him Peace.

The battles of man and beings were dead. Principles of the Republic and the convictions of the Sith were hollowed. All that mattered was her safety and fulfillment. That was what he wanted. That meant the Sith had to fall, that the Jedi and the Republic must live, and that he had to kill Malak. It was written.

Suddenly the deck plate buckled and dissolved away leaving a hole. From that hole the Sith Lord sprung. He tried to move but he couldn't. Malak's hands griped Bastila's neck in a vice and began to drag her away. Her hands became as cold as Malak's dead bleached skin appeared to be. Bastila herself began to turn pale. She screamed his name. Finally Malak managed to drag her to the whole and jumped down into it. As suddenly as Malak had materialized, he was free move again.

He ran to the hole in the deck and only saw interstellar space. Bastila was still calling out to him from the frozen pitch, he had to go. He jumped down into the hole and fell past the stars then found himself in a large room. The air was warm and oppressive. He labored to force the air into his lungs and reached for his glowrod. Instead his hand found a datapad. Words were being displayed on the screen and they read:

Yuthural Ban

After reading this name the room lit with torches and he found himself in artificial cave. Ragged walls of solid rock appeared to shimmer from the light and shadows dancing across its surface. The sensation of lose and unquenched desires saturated the surroundings. He knew he was in a tomb, a cage of death. Suddenly the familiar whine of machinery clawed at his ears demanding his immediate attention.

Like a blossoming flower the last starmap was unfolding itself and the ball of light slowly took shape. Malak's face materialized. Every line and crease of his head was defined vividly. Malak's brow and upper cheeks were set in determination and hate. The sunken yellow eyes however had the haunted expression of desperation. That was where she was. That was where Malak took her. Malak's holo-projected face then swiftly changed into Bastila's. But the eyes remained the same. The smooth face had new lines where none had been. Urgency gripped him; he had to hurry.

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The dreaming man awoke. His three day healing trance was over and that meant that the _Ebon Hawk_ had reached its new destination. He ran one of his hands down his back with his fingers spread, searching. No bruises or cuts. The lashings had healed. He glanced at his wrists and the cuts that the stun cuffs had dug into his flesh were now bracelets of fresh white scares. The raging headache was gone and the burning bruises that had been wrapped around his neck had dissipated. All his ailments that he had suffered at the hands of Soul Karith and his former student were gone. Reven had learned.

Yuthural Ban. He had to remember that name. Whoever he or she or it was, they were only person who could lead him to that tomb. Yuthural Ban.

The man rolled out of his bunk and walked over to the intercom and pressed the line for the cockpit, "Captain, how long till we reach dirt side?" Captain? Carth was a friend, a man who had watch and covered his back ever since the _Endor Spire_. Carth was also an official observer in the Republic Navy and carried rank. It was appropriate to address him by his rank.

After all, Rail Vornet was supposed to be an official advisor for the Republic's fleet courtesy of the Order. Did he himself still have obligations to fulfill even through his oath was given without . . . free consent? Dishonesty by any party in an agreement should void any binding contract.

Carth answered with a flat voice, one that was controlled by years of military obedience to those of authority. The emotionless voice was a landing strobe to those who knew what to look for. "ETA is three hours, _sir_, out." Rail Vornet was dead. It was time to bury that person and erase all proof of his existence. Time to become himself.

The man gathered pants, a tunic, stockings, and boots then went to the refresher. He spent an eternity washing the goat smell from his body. The old sweat and grease poured out of his scalp and off his body that had precipitated and dried during his healing trance. When he stepped out he was fresh. The man put on his new change of clothes and went to the mirror. The beard had to go, along with some of the hair he had been growing out for the past few months. Recent holos of him would be circulating through Sith Space, Hutt Space, and to the killers for hire within Republic Space.

He shaved, cut the hair down to something manageable and peered into the reflection. The face looking back at him was not a thirty year old man, but that of someone in their early to mid-twenties. Amazing what long hair and a beard could do. Now he needed another fake name and new identification. Mission Vao with the astromech droid could rig something up that could stand a quick assessment from authorities.

The others on the ship were asleep. Silently the Jedi walked through the main hold to the cockpit that was filled with the vivid color of the hyperspace tunnel. Carth sat in his seat gazing out into the empty dimension. Revan slipped into the second seat, "If you stare out into that tunnel to long it'll hypnotize you."

"That's an old wise tale. Like Lord Nyax. Not a word of truth to it."

"Really?" Revan asked. Since the computers' arrangements created a barrier between the pilot and the copilot the only picture that he held of Carth's face was in his mind. The man would talk. He always did when he sounded like this.

"Hmph. Actually no, that Nyax could have taken you when you were still little, still innocent. That would explain-."

"I can say I'm sorry only so many times. I am not _him_ as he was."

Carth was silent then continued, "And it would never be enough, so you don't have too. It doesn't matter who you are, only what you are. I spent the last three years dreaming of tasting Saul's blood. Letting him scream for mercy, Republic mercy. He was the price I demanded for the death of my family, not you. But you are Revan, you sound just like him. You command a following of people who would die for you. In fact, you are just what we need."

Revan closed his eyes, "How can you say that?"

Carth stood up so he could see the Jedi, "You probably don't remember a whole lot yet so here's a reminder: how did you beat the Mandalorians? You crushed them. You engineered so many deaths that they didn't want to fight anymore. The wives and mothers had to be turned into widows and the children had to be sent out to fight and die before the war ended. You fought like they fought and won saving Republic lives."

"Even knowing the cost?"

"That's . . . irrelevant. Right now is what counts, the present. I'm going to pretend to like you if you can win again. A win for the Republic."

Revan looked up and meet Carth's gaze. It held hope, a certain kind of respect. The eyes still reserved total obeisance and the fighter pilot would still die for him, just like the others. The console let out a chilling beep that broke the harsh silence. The _Ebon Hawk_ was coming out of its jump.

With a lurch the ship slipped back into real space. The next stepping stone in their search lay ahead. Korriban slowly rotated in the ink blackness of space. Carth sat down and slipped on a head set then took the controls and sent the light freighter on an intercept course to the planet. Once the ship reached a high orbit the pilot began to flip switches and turn dials on the communication console. Nothing but the whining and chirping of static filled the earphones. There was no sign of sentient civilization on the planet, what did one expect on the Sith home world?

Carth then moved his left hand and pressed the ear piece hard against his head. With his other, the pilot carefully tuned one of the smaller dials with surgical precision. Once satisfied with his tuning Carth returned his hands to the flight controls and requested a flight path to the colony. A flight plan was sent the nav-computer and the ship dived into the atmosphere.

The rocky canyon terrain slowly rose from below to kiss the ship like the parched lips of one lost to a desert. The dead landscape of a water deprived planet to close to its life giving sun twisted and curved as the _Ebon Hawk_ raced across it. Once up and over the next mound rock, the Dreshdae colony came in to full view, hidden from the sun the most part by mountains. Carth then guided the ship into a smooth landing in its prescribed dock.

As the ship touched down, the landing jets hissed and the released air blew the dirt from the dock's floor into the air. From the cockpit the two men watched the cloud of dust fill the landing pit, and degenerate into dust devils as the currants of air raced along the enclosed walls. Carth peeled the headset off and stretched, "Well, this is where the fun begins."

Revan stood pulling his hood over his head. Carth swore he saw the light blue eyes shift and harden into ice that was defying the sun the leaking into the cabin. Revan spoke, "Get your things ready, I'll go get the others."


End file.
